Protocol impasse the latest chapter in well over a century of Tory misuse of the Irish question

The unveiling of a bust of John Hume at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week was the latest tribute to one of the chief architects of the peace process.

On such occasions, due tribute is paid to Hume’s doggedness, or what Taoiseach Micheál Martin referred to as his “unrelenting perseverance”. The statue is partly a reminder of what has been lost.

Britain and Ireland’s common EU membership was useful during very difficult days in both internationalising the Irish question, a forte of Hume, and in taking some of the heat out of Anglo-Irish relations. This is what political scientist Clodagh Harris has described as pursuing “the potential for elite accommodation,” helped by frequent meetings on the fringes of European Council gatherings between the heads of British and Irish governments where familiarity could “breed consent”.

[ Confrontation between EU and UK looking more and more likely ]

[ Johnson facing battle with DUP and hardline Brexiteers over protocol Bill ]

As Tony Blair observed recently, the absence of that is a big obstacle to sorting out the NI protocol row: “The two bureaucratic systems will not settle this; it has to be done at the highest political level because, ultimately, it is not a matter of technical work but political will and leadership.”

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Blair’s predecessor John Major had to endure much Conservative Party infighting and Hume, in his other roles as SDLP leader and MP, in 1995 pointedly asked the secretary of state for Northern Ireland Patrick Mayhew to “please advise his backbenchers to keep their negative mouths shut, because all they are doing is undermining that great new atmosphere among the people”, a reference to Conservative MPs attacking the peace process at the same time as those MPs were deeply divided over Europe.

State papers from 1995, released last year, underlined the concern in Dublin about the British government’s “excessively blase” attitude to the tensions in Northern Ireland. Major referred to relations between the two governments in the early 1990s as “sour and edgy”, but meeting taoiseach Albert Reynolds in Brussels helped improve communication and strategy.

The continuity of the challenge of persuading divided Tories to take Ireland’s complications seriously is obvious, but there is little prospect of that happening and no common EU ground on which to thrash out differences.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said this week “what we don’t want to see is Ireland being part of a strategy to maintain [Johnson’s] support within the Conservative Party” through “hardening a position on the Northern Ireland Protocol”.

But the Irish question, as it has historically, will continue to lead to strategic manoeuvring within the Conservative Party for political advancement or to distract from internal woes. To seriously engage with the protocol problem with the intention of fixing it would not serve that purpose for now.

This is just the latest chapter in well over a century of Tory misuse of the Irish question that has always prompted extremism, bullying and brinkmanship.

As historian E.H.H.Green put it in his book on the ideology of the party in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, The Crisis of Conservatism (1995), the use of Ireland was mostly about “a continuation of its search for an issue or programme that would bind the forces of Conservatism together” and it “proved as ineffective as all their other efforts in this direction”.

It has frequently been wondered in the last six years how long Northern Ireland will be useful as a pawn in the English power game. That game has taken the debasement of British political leadership to a new level as revealed by the infantilism and deceit of Johnson and his equally deplorable peers. Many of the reasons for that are outlined in Simon Kuper’s recent book Chums: How a tiny caste of Oxford Tories took over the UK, charting the rise of “the amateur ruler, highly seasoned by Oxford tutorials”.

Lacking a cause, or any appreciation of public service, and indulged by an elite university culture that rewarded charm, bluff and theatrics, leaving the EU became the “cause” but in reality it was a cynical game of “cakeism”, as revealed in the words written on a notepad held by an aide leaving the Department for Exiting the European Union in November 2016: “What’s the model? Have cake and eat”.

In 2012, David Cameron, as he edged towards a commitment to holding a referendum on EU membership, told a colleague: “I have to do this. It’s a party management issue”.

Tory “party management” has always taken precedence over the stability and welfare of Northern Ireland, supposedly essential to the “integrity of the UK,” another favourite mantra of the Oxford chums.

None of the current posturing will help Ulster unionists. It is 50 years since the redundant prime minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner, after the British government prorogued the Stormont parliament and introduced direct rule, convened a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Party at Westminster. He told them “the link” between the Conservatives and them was “useless”.